


O.O.D.D

by Karwin



Category: Original Work
Genre: Eldritch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2020-10-17 11:24:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20620244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karwin/pseuds/Karwin
Summary: With the sky having broken, chaos spread rapidly across the world. All that remains is the Otherworldly Observation and Destruction Division to keep the Eerie Almighty from consuming all that exists.





	1. Chapter 1

“Keep your guard up,” Joyce Alpin said her group moved through what was left of the town. 

She couldn't believe they were sending out a team of four to deal with the damage brought by the Blight. The rookie soldiers accompanying Joyce looked around the buildings towering around them, unsure why they were so nervous. 

In appearance, the town didn't look wrong at all, didn't look any different from any other normal big city town. The silence and lack of presence was troubling sure, but it was not what was bringing the fear into their hearts and minds as they moved from street to street, guns drawn in the hopes of not having to use them. 

They were something dark in this place, around this place, pouring into from somewhere else, somewhere older and grimmer than any human could know. And it had been spreading for months now. This was the first mission into one of the locations that had been rendered uninhabited. O.O.D.D had been caught completely off guard when the Blight began. 

Even with all eyes on every anomaly they could sense, they'd been blindsided by the the forces from behind the veil. 

Perhaps not as hard as the majority of civilization, but the organization had still been caught with their pants down. 

Maybe that's why the first mission was just four people with assault rifles Joyce thought, as opposed to say a tactical carpet bombing of all the infected areas. 

Possibly overkill sure, but considering what they were dealing with it would be an excellent first case she thought. 

“What was that?” One of the rookies, Conner Rivas, questioned, gun now aimed down an alleyway they had been about to pass, “I think we found our targets.” He said, moving towards it slowly. 

“Easy Rivas,” Joyce said, “Slowly, don't get shaken. Could just be an animal.” 

Gordon snorted behind Joyce, “Isn't so much as a fly in a ten mile radius of the city limits. The only thing still around are us the roaches. Everything else in the anime kingdom seems to have wised up and bailed out.” 

“Would you hush up?” The fourth soldier, Ryan, questioned as quietly as he could while still being heard, “Or would you rather just start waving flags and calling out to the enemy?” 

Gordon didn't respond verbally, simply falling in line next to Joyce, Ryan and Conner on either side of them as they moved forward together. They had to move together, move as one. 

They'd barely had time to get to know each other before they were sent out, O.O.D.D hadn't had any more time. They couldn't let the Blight keep going unchecked, and they were sure there was actual activity they could interfere with here. 

All four of them could hear it now, a slow, steady sound coming from the other end of the alley; a musical, almost whimsical wordless tune. 

The humming somehow grew both louder and softer at the same time as the group moved closer to the source, and seemed to become more tuneless as well, the melody becoming discordant and broken, flowing like the breeze one moment and like a river of bricks the next. 

Joyce came to a stop at the edge of the alley, the others seeing this and stopping with her. Their guns rose to be at the ready, Ryan's lips moved wordlessly in a silent prayer for protection, and on Joyce's cue, the soldiers rounded the corner to see what they were up again. 

In any other scenario, three teenagers and two old women would likely not be a fraction as frightening, especially when all of them were so clearly batty; humming and listening together in their broken tune. 

All were dressed the same, yellow and purple robes with lines criss-crossing over each other forming different patterns and designs over their bodies; slightly hypnotic to look at it and thrown off further by the splotched of brown brought from the drying of blood over the cloth. 

As the soldiers approached, the group's tune gave out, all five of them stopping in the same moment, like a radio being turned off. All of them looked in the soldier's direction, all smiling like a priest welcoming new believers into their church sermon. 

“Welcome,” One of the old women said, her voice far too smooth and clear for her appearance, “Have you come to give thanks? Perhaps to learn as we have?” 

“We're here to secure the area,” Joyce said, voice mechanical and monotone, perfectly business-like, “Please come with us. No one will be harmed so long as no aggression is detected. We'll escort you to our evac plane and get help for you.” 

“But sister we've already been helped,” A teenage boy asked, voice sounding older and wiser than it should have been capable of at his age, “The whole world will be one day.” Joyce's grip on her gun tightened, wishing things could have gone easier.

(

* * *

)

“Welcome back to HQ.” The voice was of little comfort to the three soldiers as they entered O.O.D.D's main building, wanting to give their reports and be done with today. 

Lora Howell, one of the higher ups, could see in their eyes that they would be risks if left unchecked. 

They'd need medical and mental analysis before any of them could be sent out onto further missions. They'd been able to recover corpses though, which would aid research. Only Followers this time, which was disappointing, but Howell supposed it was better than the nothing they had currently. 

It had been seven months since the Blight had began, and the Otherworldly Observation and Destruction Division was intend on preventing it from reaching a full year without being slowed. 

The planet had reached forty percent infection, the Claws, as O.O.D.D had taken to referring to them, could be seen on every continent. It was time to make a move, and show the eerie almighty what humanity was capable of. We do not go down quietly.


	2. Chapter 2

“You're certain?” Lora questioned as she looked over the data O.O.D.D's research sector had provided. 

“Quite,” Their head of research, Doctor Ivar, said, “We double, triple, and quadruple checked the bodies that your soldiers retrieved from that city. They're all definitely human, but they've been altered. Some form of forced mutation in their cells. They're so slight and minimal I can only assumed they were failed attempts at something larger, fragments of what they were trying to achieve.” 

“Would these mutations allow for any abilities beyond standard human levels?” Lora asked. 

“Slightly higher than average endurance and decreased pain response,” Ivar said, “That's about it. So whatever they did that rattled the soldiers so much, it's nothing biological.” 

“I was afraid of that.” She sighed. 

She'd listened to what the soldiers had described seeing. The unnatural sounds, the impossible blackness that the people had seemed to call forth out of their bodies. Objects lifting into the air and being thrown like rag dolls. 

She didn't want to believe that normal humans were capable of taking on these powers, but considering the otherworldly origin of their foe, the chances of the report being valid were depressingly far off from zero. 

“We need to understand more about these followers,” Lora said, “How and why they're starting to follow these beings, what they know about them.” 

“And what's being done to them to grant them these new abilities.” Ivar added. 

Lora nodded in agreement, knowing her soldiers wouldn't be happy to hear what she had to say. They needed to capture one of them without killing them or letting them kill themselves. They needed information, and only so much could be gleaned from bodies. 

“It's either capture a live follower,” She explained to the soldiers, “Or be sent much, much closer to ground zero and try to retrieve information about them directly. The choice is yours.” 

“Better those cackling psychos than whatever been poisoning the world like this.” Joyce said, the soldiers around her nodding. 

“Glad to hear it,” Lora said, “Be ready and loaded up first thing tomorrow. Time to see if we can't get a leg up on the Eerie Almighty.”

(

* * *

)

Joyce, Conner, Gordon, along with two new soldiers by the names of Ellen and Jones, all filed into the ship. The uneasy could be felt in the air, and about midway to their destination, Jones couldn't help but ask. 

“So.. is it true? The things you were saying about them.” 

Joyce resisted the urge to go on some kind of tirade, accepting that it probably did make her sound slightly mad. 

She nodded, “I don't know how powerful the things we're up against are,” She said, “But they aren't right, and the things they've been doing to people..” Joyce shook her head. 

“We're gonna put a stop to it.” Conner said, Gordon nodding in agreement, “We can't let this nightmare spread any farther than it already has. It's eight ways mental we let it get so far.” 

“Suppose it just took that long for everyone to accept the Blight wasn't just an one off event.” Ellen said morosely. 

No one said anything more at the mention of the Blight. People didn't like to remember the day it hit, especially people who'd been close to it. There are some things that just don't leave you, and seeing world, the space itself, fold in on itself and open up to somewhere beyond, that was most definitely one of them. 

To say nothing of the thing that came out after the world was cracked open. 

Thankfully, they'd been given better weapons this time, now that the threat level was firmly established. Ella and Jones had been issued M208 Assault rifles, with Lupua magnum precision rifle for Conner, a light machine gun for Gordon, and a Beretta Tactical Shotgun for Joyce. 

All of them were armed with semi-automatic pistols as well, but Joyce and Gordon had both been given an extra weapon on this occasion. Both were armed with what essentially amounted to a metallic mesh net launcher combined with micro-tasers. 

If they could get in close enough, they could capture one of the mad cultists, as they'd been referring to them, without any need for fuss. But getting that close was still a problem unto itself, one that only stood out more the closer they got to their destination. 

All the five of them could do was hope and trust in each others abilities as they landed. They'd been taken to a different town, just as far out from ground zero as the previous, but with even more activity reported. 

The advanced ship had landed as stealthily as the technology made possible, but if the enemy had been within five hundred meters, they'd still likely have been heard. 

“We'll just have to stay on our toes.” Joyce said, tone rich with confidence she hoped would rub off on her squad despite its lack of substance. 

The group began to push into the town they'd landed at the outskirts of. It was less ruined than the previous, though it was hard to know how positive a sign that could really be. Shaken as the group was from their first encounter with the mental cases that roamed these parts, there was a sense of security that accompanied their knew weapons. 

As powerful as the cultists had been made, and as broken as their minds were, they were still just humans, and it would only take a few shots to the soft bits to take down a human no matter how mad they were. 

Even if they were unable to complete their mission, their survival was much more certain than it had been. That is to say, it very much would have been if cultists were the only things in the area.

“Welcome friends~!” A voice called to the group from the darkness ahead of them, the silhouette of a person just barely visible at the top of a building, “You're just in time to see what our dear lords have been creating for us!” 

All five of them took aim at the man, but before anything else could be said or done, the rumbling, and more upsettingly, the groaning, from within the building, made them question just how safe they were out here.


	3. Will be deleted within a day or two

Sinful's finally gotten back to healthy sleeping/working patterns, hazah! Now which stories to work on... Ah! A poll! Not here on AO3 I'm afraid, as I need data for stories on FF as well. You'll have to be a Sinfulnature1123 patron to vote, so if you aren't one I suppose you'll simply have to wait and see what gets selected. Any story with this message is in the poll. From now on I'll be doing this every month (they'll start on the first or second starting next month) so you all can decide what you wanna see. I'll also probably have one story I personally wish to work on as well. In any event, the poll will close on the tenth. 'til then my lovely readers!


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